Sell Sterling Silver Flatware in NYC

This is the first thing we check and it is the difference between a real payout and almost nothing, so it is worth checking at home before you carry a heavy chest across the city.

Sterling is 92.5 percent silver throughout and is marked as such. Look for the word STERLING, the numerals 925, or on English pieces a lion passant walking left. The mark is usually on the back of the handle or the underside of the stem.

Silverplate is a microscopically thin silver skin over a base metal, typically nickel or copper alloy. Common marks include EPNS, A1, TRIPLE, IS or the maker's name with no sterling designation at all. Rogers, Community and Oneida pieces are very often plate.

Silverplate has essentially no recoverable silver value. It is worth saying plainly rather than letting anyone make the trip on false hope: a full plated service is generally not worth selling for metal.

Here is the fact that reshapes more flatware valuations than anything else, and almost nobody arrives knowing it.

Sterling knife handles are hollow and filled with cement or pitch. The handle is a thin sterling shell wrapped around filler, and the blade itself is usually stainless steel, not silver at all. A knife that feels reassuringly heavy in the hand might contain only a small fraction of its weight in actual silver. It is still stamped sterling, entirely legitimately, because the shell genuinely is.

The same construction shows up in candlesticks, some trophy cups and various decorative holloware, often marked weighted or reinforced. Those bases are filled with plaster or pitch for stability.

This is why a chest of flatware is never valued by putting the whole thing on a scale. Forks and spoons are solid sterling and get weighed as such. Knives, weighted candlesticks and filled pieces are assessed separately on their actual silver content. Anyone quoting you a single price for the gross weight of a full chest is either being careless or is counting on you not knowing this.

Most sterling flatware is worth its silver content and that is the end of it. Sometimes it is worth considerably more intact, and identifying which is the reason we look at every piece rather than weighing the lot.

Makers whose work carries resale demand of its own include Gorham, Tiffany & Co., Reed & Barton, Towle, Wallace, International and Georg Jensen. A recognisable pattern from one of these in good condition can find a buyer who wants the service itself, not the metal.

Completeness matters here in a way it does not for scrap. A full service for twelve with its serving pieces is a coherent set somebody can actually use. Nine mismatched forks are metal.

Bring the chest it came in if you still have it. The label inside often names the pattern, which saves us both time.

Monograms make no difference to melt value, since the silver content is unchanged. They do narrow the pool of buyers wanting the set intact, so on a piece whose value rests on pattern rather than metal, a monogram can pull the number toward melt.

Tarnish is not damage. Do not polish anything before bringing it in. Tarnish is surface oxidation that comes off in refining, and aggressive polishing removes a thin layer of actual silver each time, along with the crisp detail on decorated patterns.

Missing pieces are fine. Partial services, mismatched patterns, one surviving serving spoon from a set long gone — all of it is still sterling and all of it is still worth weighing.

Bring the whole thing, unsorted. You do not need to separate anything or work out what is what beforehand, and guessing wrong at home is more likely to cost you than help.

We sort it in front of you into sterling, plate and weighted pieces, checking marks as we go. You see which pile each item goes into and why. Solid pieces get weighed by the troy ounce against the live silver market; weighted and filled pieces get assessed on their real content.

For a large service or several chests, text photos ahead to 917-608-8939 so we can set aside proper time. A full estate's worth of silver takes a while to do carefully, and it deserves to be done carefully.